Admission to make - reversal done
Hi everyone,
I've admission to make, I had an ileostomy reversal on 17th July 2026, I now think that I can give you an update on how it's going. My apologies for the wall of text that follows.
Firstly, some background. I'm a 57 year old male. I had a lower anterior resection and anastomosis back in January 2026 as part of my treatment for bowel cancer. During the 8 hour operation the surgeon removed the last 14" of my colon, so all of my sigmoid colon, around 2/3rds of my rectum and 26 lymph nodes. Luckily for me it was caught at an early stage, MRIs, CT scans and histology showed that it hadn't spread beyond my bowel, thus I didn't require chemotherapy or radiotherapy. I was left with a loop ileostomy whilst the anastomosis join healed.
Although it was a big adjustment, I settled into life with my ileostomy (referred to as Stomie by my wife). I figured that I best accepted and adapt to it so that I could crack on with life rather than waste it. After 8 weeks I was back to hiking in mountains, travelling and generally living life as I used to, with just minor adjustments to diet and day to day life around handling my bag.
Reversal surgery was always planned, but by the time that my operation came around I was ambivalent to it. I had concerns regarding LARS and incontinence and to be honest I never found having an ileostomy and a bag as big of an issue as I initially thought I would when I was diagnosed.
So how has the reversal gone? Well here's a run down, although to summarise, better than expected.
The actual operation was pretty quick and the operation site wasn't that sore, although the right side of my abdomen was. I spent 5 days in hospital and left with an open wound that requires redressing and packing (initially every day, but now down to twice a week).
On the day of the operation I didn't eat at all, but on the following two days I was on a liquid diet (jelly and ice cream or soup). I did miss one meal early on due to ileus causing me to feel backed up.
Once I was regularly passing wind and stool (although it was pretty liquid), which started around 36 hours after my operation, I was moved onto semi-solid food, around day 4 - mashed potato, fish pie. In hospital I would visit the toilet at least once an hour, sometimes more although I'd be able to sleep through most of the night.
When I was discharged and I was told to follow a low fibre diet for 2 weeks or so. During this time my motions would cycle between diarrhoea to severe constipation (causing pain) I tried to drink extra water in order to help, but never managed to down enough and so after a week of this I started eating some tinned prunes with every meal which helped enormously to get things moving. A pot of nappy rash cream (Sudocrem) also came in handy for easing discomfort around my anus.
So how's it going?
Urgency and clustering are the two points that I suffer from.
So typically within 20 minutes of eating I'll get a definite urge to dash to the toilet. If able, I would pass a little stool and with a few minutes need to go again. This cycle may repeat 3 or 4 times over the next hour.
I've moved onto eating a normal diet, with all of the fibre that entails. I eat whole, live yoghurt with my breakfast and take probiotic supplements each day in order to help repopulate my gut with the bacteria that it has lost. These bacteria are fundamental in breaking down fibre in your lower intestine. It was very noticeable at the start that all of that fibre was just passing through. Nearly 4 weeks in its less so now. The aim is two fold, the fibre will help prevent constipation as it both provides bulk but also helps to carry water further into your gut.
I returned to work last week, although my job is mostly sedentary which probably helps. The need to visit the toilet so often, especially after walking anywhere is reducing. After two visits this morning (within an hour of eating breakfast) and a once during the night I'm now okay and I've been up around 4 hours, but I must admit that I wouldn't trust a fart yet!
So far I've been pleasantly surprised, there may have been and are some difficulties, but I was anticipating constant diarrhoea and visits to the toilet. The horror stories of LARS that we've all read about. I appreciate that for some that is their experience of a reversal and for them I do sympathise and all I can say is hang in there, it could still improve.